If Only It Were True
by sansyeux
Summary: Since Kakashi moved from the Hatake compound to a much smaller house, Iruka's clone keeps appearing to him... Or is it a ghost?


**A/N:** English is not my first language. Sorry for any spelling mistakes.

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own Naruto.

* * *

" _Ka_ _kashi-sensei..."_

Kakashi felt it more than he heard his name in a chill whisper that raced up his spine. He sat up as he pulled the bedsheet up, covering his mouth and nose. The sound or whatever it was, had woken him from a deep sleep in the middle of the night. It was the second time it was happening since he'd moved in to that apartment.

He looked around the bedroom with his ninja instincts activated and a kunai in his hand, wondering if someone had broken in. He'd just come back from a 4 months mission and was off duty for two weeks, which meant fifteen days without worrying about someone trying to kill him in his sleep.

He opened both eyes, but all he saw was darkness and silence. No movement. Nothing. The room was empty except for him. Maybe it was just a dream or just his imagination.

Well, apparently his imagination was just a little too active. He was wide awake now. He looked at his clock. _Midnight. Damn!_ He had just fallen asleep an hour and a half ago. He groaned, annoyed with himself and his overactive dreams. There was obviously no one in his bedroom. He was about to lie back down when he heard it again.

 _"Kakashi-sensei..."_

This time it was distinct. Kakashi was now sure he hadn't been imagining it. Someone was in his room whispering his name, but he couldn't see a damn thing. Where the hell were they hiding?

This time he got up and switched on the light. No-one was there. He couldn't sense any chakra presence. He waited, the seconds stretching out. He could only hear the pure silence that could only come in the smallest hours of the night. Kakashi sat down on his bed, listening for breathing, shuffling, anything that would tell him that someone was really there.

 _"Kakashi-sensei..."_

The whisper broke the silence once more. If anything it was more pronounced. Kakashi felt a slippery coldness work its way through his body. He couldn't see or hear anyone else in the room but he could tell that someone was there.

Kakashi was too tired to deal with this for the second night. He grabbed some of his weapons, a pillow and his comforter and headed for the couch in the living room. He wasn't going to sleep well and his back would hurt like hell in the morning, but it had to be better than this. As he was about to turn the doorknob, the Jōnin heard a final whisper.

 _"Kakashi-sensei, don't leave. I need you..."_

He felt the tingling again as if someone was touching him lightly with a feather. He couldn't see a damn thing. He shut the door went to the living room.

He laid there for what seemed like hours on the couch, trying to fall asleep. He was tired but couldn't even get his heart to calm down, couldn't get that whispering voice out of his head.

It had been a week since he'd moved from the Hatake compound to this small apartment. The place wasn't too far from the Hokage tower and the village's gates. It was perfectly located. Or so he thought. Since yesterday he'd been hearing someone whispering his name at night. It started at midnight. But Kakashi could never see the person whispering. Whoever was there was going to pay for disturbing his sleep. The Copy-nin didn't even wanted to think of another possibility.

* * *

Kakashi practically crawled into the Mission Room the next morning. He was tired as hell and his body was aching from the hours spent on the couch. He needed a major jolt to his system. He was actually glad he didn't have any missions, because he was sure he could be injured easily. He couldn't even keep his eye opened for more than five minutes.

The Mission Room was totally silent. There was a young female Chūnin working there. She took his report, looked it over, stamped it, made notes and gave it back to him.

"Thank you for the hard work." She said with a fake smile.

Kakashi nodded and left the room. Somehow it felt wrong. He got annoyed at the woman. He imagined a tan-skinned man with a prominent facial scar and a high ponytail in her place. That woman didn't have Umino Iruka's kindness, humor and temper. If it was him he wouldn't just let Kakashi walk over him like that. He wouldn't accept the Jōnin's half-finished report that were practically illegible.

Speaking of which, it had been already a year and a couple of months since Kakashi had last seen the Chūnin. Now that he didn't have a team to train anymore, Kakashi busied himself with missions after missions. And because some of them were confidential, the reports were handed in directly to the hokage, so he rarely went to the Mission Room. And the only little time he'd spent at the village, he'd spent it sleeping and buying a new house four months ago, before he'd gone for another mission.

He kinda wanted to know how was Naruto doing now that he was being trained by a Sanin. He wondered if Iruka had any news from the boy. Maybe it was time to break the ice between them.

Kakashi heard the quiet shuffling of feet coming towards him. He looked up and saw Asuma, his best friend, eyeing him strangely.

"Kakashi, you look like shit. What happened to you?" Tactful as always.

"Rough night. Couldn't sleep."

The bearded Jōnin gave Kakashi another strange look. "You really moved to that apartment on the 3rd district?" He asked.

"Yeah, why?" The way Asuma had asked made the silvers hairs on the back of Kakashi's neck stand up. Was he being paranoid, or did his friend know something?

"No reason," Asuma answered quickly.

"Seriously, what?" After the night he had, Kakashi didn't need any more strangeness.

"Wasn't that Raidō's apartment before?"

Raidō had moved in with his girlfriend somewhere before Spring. He was the one who had sold the apartment to Kakashi before the Jōnin had gone to his mission. And it seemed like the Special Jōnin was happy to move out.

"Yes, why?"

"Never mind, Kakashi. I think you need to rest. You must be tired from your mission." Asuma gave his friend a playful slap on his back before entering the Mission Room.

Kakashi shook his head, basically at his limit for weird creepy events. First, last night, now this cryptic conversation.

He took a small orange book out of his pocket and started reading. But his mind was still rationalizing the night before, think of a reason that he could have heard someone whispering his name. He didn't want to include the obvious but impossible explanation. That someone was in his room. Someone invisible. _Maybe a ninja. A very skilled one._ But why would ninja enter his house just to whisper his name? It didn't make sense.

But honestly (and here's where Kakashi really start to feel nuts) fairly often in the past two days he had come back to his bedroom to find his stuff in different places. Like someone curious had come in and looked through it while he was gone. The wards weren't broken and nothing was ever missing, so he hadn't said anything, but he could swear someone had been in there. And that feeling was there. Not as strong, but it was there. A milder version of that 'I'm not alone' chill he had gotten the night before. _Yeah, right Hatake. You have an inquiring poltergeist_.

He shook his head again. His tired brain still sorting through all of the slightly weird events that had happened in his bedroom since he'd moved in. His books moved, scrolls shifted through, the bed being made (which he never do). Kakashi was starting to see why Raidō had found his girlfriend's apartment so... _appealing_.

* * *

By the time Kakashi was done with his day, it was nearly midnight. It was drizzling outside and he got soaked up just a bit since he was walking in a rather slow pace. When he got home, he headed straight for the bathroom, took a hot shower, dried his hair, put a clean shirt on and a pair of pants and fell on the bed.

 _"Kakashi-sensei..."_

Kakashi looked at his clock. _Midnight. Again._ He groaned. _You've got to be fucking kidding me._ "Leave me alone," He said to the general darkness. He felt like an idiot, but he needed to sleep. He didn't feel like dealing with this tonight.

 _"Kakashi-sensei please, I need your help."_

 _Maaaa…What part of 'leave me alone' was confusing?_ This time Kakashi felt something. A presence. His eyes snapped open. He grabbed the kunai under his pillow and threw the sharp weapon at the intruder. He sat up on the bed, more angry than ever. His eyes focused slowly in the dark.

That's when Kakashi saw him.

There was a man sitting calmly on the easy chair that he had squished into the corner of the bedroom. The man was watching him patiently, as if waiting for Kakashi to wake up so he could talk to him. The silver-haired Jōnin launched to him with another kunai, only to it pass through the man's body and hit the wall. The man didn't move. He was there in the same position. Kakashi's eyes went wide when he noticed that he could see the walk through the man's body.

He couldn't sense any chakra but he could see the man's faint edges. _He doesn't look like a clone._ Kakashi thought as he slowly walked in front of him.

He recognized the man. It was Umino Iruka. He wasn't wearing his forehead protector and his hair was down. It was the first time Kakashi saw him with his hair down and he looked... _different_. The Jōnin also noticed that he was barefooted and wearing a dirty light blue yukata.

Kakashi reached out, but his hand dropped straight through Iruka's body to the chair. _Body flicker? Isn't he just a Chūnin? He shouldn't know this technique._

"Iruka-sensei, is it you?" He asked. But the teacher didn't answer.

He was with his head down, looking... _embarrassed?_ That's when Kakashi realized he wasn't wearing his mask. He thought about covering his face but it would be useless now. Iruka had already seen his face.

"Iruka-sensei?" this time the Chūnin looked up. He stared at Kakashi for some minutes then disappeared.

* * *

The next day, Kakashi went to the Academy ninja looking for Iruka, since he couldn't find him, once again, in the Mission Room. He wondered why the teacher, or his clone, or whatever Jutsu he'd used, was in his house. It's not like they were friends or something. Aside from the Chūnin yelling at him in the Mission Desk, they'd only talked a couple of times, but it was all about Naruto. They'd never sat down to have a real conversation. So, it made Iruka's appearance in his house very strange.

Could it be that the Chūnin was in trouble? No. It couldn't be that. If it was, Iruka would have looked for Tsunade, Anko, Asuma or one of his Chūnins friends like Izumo or Kotetsu. Not Kakashi. Never Kakashi. The Jōnin was pretty sure Iruka hated him. So why was he there, in his room and in such state. It really bothered him.

He wanted to talk with Iruka and asked him why. He knew the teacher's classroom. Not only because Naruto had told him about it before, but also because his favorite spot was on a tree, just outside Iruka's classroom, sometimes reading his book, for Iruka's terror. Seeing his tanned face turning bright red was very amusing to Kakashi sometimes.

Kakashi got to Iruka's classroom, but the Chūnin wasn't there. In his place was a woman he didn't know.

"Kakashi-sensei?" She said, looking surprised at him as everyone else in the class. "Can I help you?"

"Yes… I'm looking for Iruka-sensei."

"Oh..." The woman's face fell. She looked at him with sad eyes. Some of the students had the same expression. "Didn't you know? Iruka-sensei is dead."


End file.
